It's Maundy Thursday

Today is Holy Thursday, also known as Sheer Thursday (as in to purge yourself of sin), Covenant Thursday, Great and Holy Thursday, and Thursday of Mysteries. Remember to wash your feet or the feet of someone else, if you are so inclined.

Among the other things going on remember: don't go to a dinner party with 12 other people -



I've often said before, today is a big confessional day - If you are so intent on reading about my misspent youth as an altar boy, read here.  Those uninterested in this, move along, nothing to see here; you could think about today being National Cocktail Day.

I shall be abstaining, (that's my story and I'm sticking with it.)


Purim started last night:



The festival of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.”



It's sometimes referred to as the Jewish Mardi Gras or Halloween.

(I still like the Poppy seed Hamentaschen more than the fruit filled ones - really, who but old people would put prunes in a dessert.)

Happy Purim to all, and to all a good...wait, wrong holiday.


If you look at three diseases, the three major killers, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, the only disease for which we have really good drugs is HIV. And it's very simple: because there's a market in the United States and Europe. - Jim Yong Kim  (President of the World Bank)

Today is World Tuberculosis Day, commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis, the TB bacillus.



(also it is supposed to remind people that tuberculosis still remains an epidemic in much of the world.)


It's also National Chocolate Covered Raisin Day - a day to enjoy this tasty combination of chocolate and fruit. Chocolate lovers who like raisins, find the combination simply irresistible. Kids find them irresistible, too.



Just make sure nobody owns a rabbit (or a guinnea pig, believe me, we know from personal experience) at the home where you are enjoying those Raisinets (TM).


March 24, 1939 -
... The only way to nab our man is to catch him in the act - catch him so that there's no escape, no alibi.....

Twentieth Century Fox's released on this date, the first of 14 films based on Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles.



The film was such a hit that Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce were hired to play Holmes and Watson on the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. This radio series consisted of new Sherlock Holmes stories written by Anthony Boucher and Denis Green.

Oh Watson, the needle


March 24, 1951 -
Scent-Imental Romeo, another funny Looney Tunes short starring Pepé Le Pew, was released on this date.



This is the only Golden Age Pepe Le Pew cartoon in which Pepe does not continue chasing the cat (nor catches her) in the end.


March 24, 1973 -
Pink Floyd, release the album Dark Side of the Moon, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, on this date.



I wonder how it did on the charts?


Today in History:
March 24, 1401 -
Tamerlane conquered Damascus on this date. Tamerlane (Timur the Lane) was a descendant of Ghenghis Khan, and one of the greatest Tater leaders ever, expanding the Mongol empire from the Pacific to the Mediterranean.

Tamerlane is best remembered for having built pyramids out of human skulls, owing to a faulty understanding of architecture which no one ever had the courage to correct. 

Feel free to bring this up at the next cocktail party you attend.


March 24, 1603 -
Tudor Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen," died on this date. She had reigned from 1558-1603 and claimed never to have had a date.



Scottish King James VI, son of Mary, became King James I of England in the union of the crowns.


March 24, 1874 -
Harry Houdini, Erik Weisz (Ehrich Weiss) magician, escape artist, performed his first trick when he escaped from his mother's womb in Budapest on this date.



He is still working on perfecting his final trick of coming back from the dead.


March 24, 1895 -
Arthur Murray, American dancer who founded dance schools, was born on this date.



He proved to millions of Americans that they have no innate sense of rhythm.


March 24, 1944 -
76 Allied officers escaped Stalag Luft 3 on this date. In 1949 Paul Brickall wrote The Great Escape. The story of Jackson Barrett Mahon, an American fighter pilot, and the Allied POW escape from Stalag Luft III in Germany during WW II.



The 1963 film The Great Escape starred Steve McQueen, directed by John Sturges, was based on the true story.


March 24, 1958 - (Please note, you are about to see Elvis, stripped to the waist. Should you need healing of any sort, please press your sweaty hand upon the screen and your even damper palm upon your afflicted region.)
Elvis Aron Presley entered the United States Army at Memphis, Tennessee, on this date, and then spent three days at the Fort Chaffee, Arkansas, Reception Station.

While in the army, Elvis met his future wife, Priscilla, at a party. He left active duty at Fort Dix, New Jersey, on March 5, 1960, and received his discharge from the Army Reserve on March 23, 1964.


March 24, 1975 -
Alex Mitchell, a 50-year-old bricklayer from King's Lynn, England, died laughing while watching an episode of The Goodies, featuring a Scotsman in a kilt battling a vicious black pudding with his bagpipes on this date.



After 25 minutes of continuous laughter Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and expired from heart failure. His widow later sent The Goodies a letter thanking them for making Mitchell's final moments so pleasant. (And the address where they can send her check.)


March 24, 1989 -
Cold Fusion was announced 27 years ago on this date.

To celebrate this amazing advancement in energy, Captain Joseph Hazelwood downed, in rapid succession, five double vodka on the rocks and piloted the Exxon tanker Valdez.



He ran the Valdez into a well-charted reef at Prince William sound, spilling 11 million gallons of crude oil. An estimated 250,000 seabirds were killed.

Oops



And so it goes